Learning network embeddings using small graphlets

le Gorrec, Luce and Knight, Philip A. and Caen, Auguste (2021) Learning network embeddings using small graphlets. Social Network Analysis and Mining, 12 (1). 20. ISSN 1869-5450 (https://doi.org/10.1007/s13278-021-00846-9)

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Abstract

Techniques for learning vectorial representations of graphs (graph embeddings) have recently emerged as an effective approach to facilitate Machine Learning on graphs. Some of the most popular methods involve sophisticated features such as graph kernels or convolutional networks. In this work, we introduce two straightforward supervised learning algorithms based on small-size graphlet counts, combined with a dimension reduction step. The first relies on a classic feature extraction method powered by Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The second is a feature selection procedure also based on PCA. Despite their conceptual simplicity, these embeddings are arguably more meaningful than some popular alternatives and at the same time are competitive with state-of-the-art methods. We illustrate this second point on a downstream classification task. We then use our algorithms in a novel setting, namely to conduct an analysis of author relationships in Wikipedia articles, for which we present an original dataset. Finally, we provide empirical evidence suggesting that our methods could also be adapted to unsupervised learning algorithms.

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